halofanonfandomcom-20200223-history
281 Preservator-A
{|style="width:100%; font-family:Ebrima; color:#FFF;" | |image= |class= |manufacturer= |length= |width= |height=1,412.75 metres (4,635 ft) |mass=200 million metric tons |engine= |slipspace drive= |shield gen=Z-5912 (4) |hull=*Ultracompressed neutronium plating * blocks |sensor= detectors |target= |navigation= |avionics= |countermeasures= |armament=* (1) * (2) * (6) |complement=Assembly vat seeds (7) |crew=1 Gatekeeper-level |capacity= |consumables= |othersystems= |era=* * |role=*Enforcement of the *Protection and security |commission=Unknown |retired= |affiliation=* *007 Contrite Witness * |captains= }} 281 Preservator-A was a which has been tasked with protecting interests in the Pesegam star cluster. Old even when compared to its sister-constructs and clearly not as advanced, Preservator-A was primarily tasked with tending the local species in its sector, protecting - and culling - the ancient civilisations within its dominion. Carrying a weak by Forerunner standards, the custode was instead modified to interface with their tether network. The astronomical power of their translocation grids and point-to-point slipspace highways provided enough mobility to allow Preservator-A to instead travel to wherever it deemed necessary, even as its grew agitated with the lack of assignments. To humanity, little is known about Preservator-A's actual history, though it was known that it did serve a minor role during the , safeguarding the tether network against hostile attack fleets that attempted to cut off the Orion Arm from the rest of the galaxy. It kept order throughout the galaxy for the next ten million years, even after the engineers eventually forgot how to even understand Preservator's old programming languages. Once the began , the custode spent only a few years fighting the Flood before their corrupting effects on the Overwatch network turned it against its makers. Spearheading and undermining the defences of the very colonies it was designed to defend, Preservator would eventually be recaptured and reset by Forerunner forces. By this stage, however, its actions proved that the custodes were too vulnerable and ineffective to the Flood to be worth deploying. As a result, it was deactivated and buried deep within the artificial moon of Sardem, an orbiting moon of Artem. After resting undisturbed for millennia after the , the guardian would be secretly reactivated by 007 Contrite Witness to help curb the rise of the aggressive Waquish civilisation. Beaten back as the insectoid species slowly grew more adept with technology, it would have its range restricted to just Installation 02 and the Pesegem Tether. It would protect the Forerunner megastructure for thousands of years, until it received a coded signal to regroup at the of . History Ecumene Service Like all Guardian custodes, the exact origins of Preservator-A were impossible to determine, with even capable of only speculating when and why they were built. To most Forerunners, they simply were always around, being a remnant to a past age of progress. However, the does have records on the creation of these ancient pieces of technology, as scientists discovered in the aftermath of the . In the earliest ages of the Forerunner civilisation some ten million years ago, the species were tested by their makers on whenever they were capable of upholding the . As part of their trials, they had to prove their ability to maturely guide the evolution of life across the planets within their territory. This was where the origins of the Guardian custodes - and Preservator-A - laid. Using the very latest technologies and materials available to the early Forerunners, Preservator-A was used to directly control the direction that life took. While it was used sparingly, as the centuries passed on the custode had an increasingly more draconian involvement on the evolution of the planets it had, the key one being the suppression of sapient development. This would ensure that the Forerunners would face no competition from newly-established races, leaving their only rivals being the . It was because of this attempt to weed out any rivals that would spark the Precursors to give the Mantle to the humanity, judging . In response, the secretly recalled the custodes back. Upgrading them to modern standards at the time, the guardians would be eventually unleashed on the Precursors by 9,740,000 BCE. With their organisational ancillas replaced with efficient, bloodthirsty counterparts, Guardian custodes like the Preservator-A led the Forerunner fleets against their enemies. While the bulk of their fleet chased their main opponents out of the galaxy, the Preservator-A was part of a task force that was assembled against a different target - humanity. When they arrived, the discovery that humanity was using technology that had long been abandoned by the Forerunners millennia ago led to them abandoning their conquest; the Forerunner admiral knew that the war would be nothing less than mindless slaughter, especially since they had no way to threaten their interests and territory in the foreseeable future. Instead, Preservator-A was redirected to intercept and detained any Precursor ships and technology that was being ferried to uplift the species further. Conscription .}} With the Waquish threat permanently pacified, the next epoch of its service passed with very few incidents, with Dissipated Arc relinquishing its control over the custode. With its original berth compromised during the war, Preservator returned to the Pesegem Tether, using its limited shipkeeping services to keep itself maintained. It undertook millennia-long hibernations, awaking periodically to make a routine patrol of the network in order to ensure it was in impeccable condition - or so was the plan. In reality, the tether-stations would frequently break down during the time it was offline, further reducing the places it can reach. This frustration took its toll on the custode's ancilla, leaving it desperate for a sense of purpose; recovered records indicated that on at least two hundred instances the AI attempted self-destruction, with just over half being successful. Every time it was destroyed, the guardian's backup would be copied and reactivated. Finally, nearly thirty-seven thousand years since it was reactivated, a long-forgotten transmitter would curiously report success with accessing not only the Forerunner Overwatch Network, but a high-level communications frequency that was last used more than one hundred thousand years ago. Suspicious at the sudden success of contacting the Domain, Preservator's ancilla subroutines would attempt to access data on the rest of the Ecumene when it was unexpectedly locked off from its usual functions by a hostile computer program, supplementing and deleting it as the enemy took control. Reduced seemingly to an empty husk, the guardian would interface with the Pesegem Tether and be directed through it to a minor facility on its way to the shield world of Genesis. Chunks of rock and ice would float out of the slipspace portal - evidence that its destination had not been unearthed - before the massive construct calmly flew through the gateway. Preservator's arrival would result in the destruction of a minor asteroid, unknowingly interfering with Operation: RUNIT DOME; a operation which hoped to discover and if possible shut down a rebel superweapon project. Firing off massive overclocked pulses, it would detect the presence of combat and would deploy its remaining Promethean contingent. Specifications Ancilla attributes Personality As with later guardians, the ancilla which dictates the actions of the fearsome Guardian has been described as being single-minded and coldly efficient, dedicated to balancing the requirements of the Mantle of Responsibility with the ambitions of its Forerunner masters. To this end, it has no considerations for the morality of its actions or the value of its subjects, viewing them as weeds that must be culled once they reach a certain threshold. It holds no respect for even the Forerunners, thanks to its deep link with the Domain, and it only pushes itself to save stranded individuals thanks to layer-upon-layer of prioritisation programs which forces it to protect, detain, and remove them from its assigned regions. In fact, the biggest subject it considers in its actions is biodiversity and preserving history; it will reflexively pummel extremely industrialised civilisations. It rarely speaks or communicates, and what little it does is sharp, blunt, and to the point to convey as much information as possible within the smallest possible time frame. Category:Forerunner